


To Buy

by T_chan



Series: Life for Rent [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Drama, Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4858796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/T_chan/pseuds/T_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything can be bought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Buy

You’re amusing. That’s one of the reasons why you weren’t back out on the streets the next morning. The other reason, of course, is that you’re beautiful. 

Ah, I can see you don’t believe me. It’s there, in the way you look down at the floor. At the walls, at the furniture, out the window… anywhere except at me. Once again attempting to hide the defiance that I know lurks in your eyes. The last stronghold for me to conquer.

How long has it been? Two years, already? Yet you insist to behave like the malnourished waif I saved from the slums of the city. Still every bit the stubborn orphan. Every bit the virgin. Really, as if you had anything left to hide. As if you and I weren’t by now the most intimate of acquaintances. So amusing in your denials, you are.

Look at me.

…Yes, beautiful. As exquisite as a hand-made doll. I never imagined you would attract the amount of attention you do. Enough to make a lesser man jealous. Enough that sometimes I have considered keeping you all for myself, locked away in an ivory tower. Would you like that, my sweet? Then each night we could pretend I was your knight in shining armor coming to rescue you from the evil monster, and we could then play to live happily ever after.

Hmm, come to think of it, I did rescue you, didn’t I? And haven’t I made you happy?

I told you to look at me.

Tsk, tsk. Whatever I’m going to do with you? Many would kill to be in your place, you know? To have even a fraction of what I bestow upon you, and yet you wallow in an ocean of indifferent pathos. Pretending to be untouched, unmoved, unfeeling. But we both know that’s not the case, don’t we?

What? No, I’m not mad at you, my pet. Your battles, as I said before, actually entertain me. Others would have long been ruined by my touch—have been, in fact—crumbled into themselves like a house of cards. Brittle toys, the lot. But not you, dearest. You suffer pleasure and pain with ancient stoicism. Be it the spite of the world, the viciousness of my family, the chill of death, the tragedy of life—or my weight between your legs.

I wasn’t so sure, then, you see. That day in the street, under the rain. It was a graveyard of broken souls and flashy neon lights. Do you remember?

The smell, you say? Yes, not an easy one to forget. Pungent urine and acrid methane. The smell of misery. It was everywhere, wasn’t it? Steaming from the buildings and sidewalks, hovering above everything like a pasty cloud of malaise. What were you, then, if not a face in a million faces. Another hungry body wasting away in the quake of the Long Depression. Not remarkable, at all. Not remarkable, that is, until you looked up, across the street, and straight into the blackened windows of my car. 

You couldn’t really see me, but, oh, I could certainly see you. A little boy drenched in acidic rain, covered in the tattered clothes of what once upon a time had been a school uniform. I had seen others like you before, the forlorn children of a forsaken generation. They were all the same: vacant eyes, lost expressions, thin skin stretched over disproportioned bones. Lady Sickness had spared them but they still bore her mark. Not you, though. Where they were despondent, you were defiant. Not dead, still alive. I mused on that as I watched you from the comfort of my seat. What was that which refused to surrender? Why had you succeeded where others had failed? How long would you remain victorious?

Let me tell you, back then, you weren’t pretty. Nothing but flesh and blood and stinky neglect. I was rather surprised when a hot bath discovered the gold beneath the dirt. It made me pause and reconsider. And when you refused to yield your secrets along with your innocence, I knew I would keep you.

You see, my dear, I have never been able to turn down a good mystery. …But enough of my ramblings. 

Look. At. Me.

Now, take off your clothes and come closer.

  


**[ End: 'To Buy' ]**

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of the 'Life for Rent' series.  
> [Written 2005, edited 2015]


End file.
